Sierra Leone international joined the English Championship club on Transfer Deadline Day.
Sporting Kansas City manager Peter Vermes admits it wasn’t an easy decision to allow Kei Kamara to join Middlesbrough.
The Major League Soccer side studied Boro’s offer to take Kamara back to England, where he spent a short loan spell at Norwich last season, before ultimately resolving to sanction the sale in order to pocket the transfer fee and free up space in their salary budget.
Although the deal took many by surprise Vermes revealed it had been in the pipeline for the last four to five days and that it remained largely under radar until Monday morning.
“Obviously, it’s never an easy decision when you’re making the choice to sell a player,” manager He told MLS Soccer on Monday “At the same time, it’s part of the international soccer business. It wasn’t an easy one, but at the same time I think it was a decision between both parties that was the likely choices.
“It’s not like we’ve been fielding calls like crazy. There was another club that was interested, but it wasn’t to the point where we felt comfortable doing a deal for many different reasons.
“It wasn’t just the number,” he added. “Then this one came up, and I don’t want to say really quick, but a little quicker than normal – just over the last four or five days here.”
In trading the Sierra Leone international to the Championship club for financial gain, Kansas have lost a proven scorer with the 29-year-old ending his time at Sporting Park with a total of 38 goals and the accolade of leading the team’s scoring charts in each of the last three seasons.
Kamara, however, tweeted of his delight after joining Boro and is keen to get started at the Riverside Stadium.
Very happy and thankful for this new chapter of my career with Middlesbrough FC (@Boro). Can’t wait to meet the boys/fans and get started.
COMMENTS